Archive for July, 2013

The Celtics still have one too many men on the roster, so a decision must be made.

Second-round pick Colton Iverson did them a favor by signing overseas for a season or two, allowing the C’s to maintain his rights while freeing a roster spot. And the writing is on the wall for Shavlik Randolph, who is due $1.1 million if he isn’t cut by Thursday and remains the lone non-guaranteed contract on the team.

Still, Shav proved worthy of a second look last season, producing 4.2 points and 4.4 rebounds in an average of 12.4 minutes. Plus, he has moves like Michael Jackson (see video, obviously). So, let’s take a look at how new Celtics coach Brad Stevens may manage his team’s minutes to figure out how they might keep Randolph around.

18. He’s not goal-oriented; he’s process-oriented: “My goal is to win the next game one possession at a time. That’s it. I don’t have any other goals. I’ve never been a goal guy. I didn’t have a goal at Butler. Our goals were always to get better every day and win the next game one possession at a time, and that was it. And so that’s what we’ll try to do.”

17.He really likes Phil Pressey: “Pressey is a guy who can affect a game. If a game is not really going your way, he can spark you. He can get inside the defense, he can make plays defensively. He can his hands on balls. He is a cerebral point guard. I like his game. I think he does a lot of good things.”

16. Danny Ainge inquired about his interest before the Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett trade: “After Doc left, he had actually called me and talked about, ‘Are you interested in the job?’ And, ‘This is what I’ve got going on this week.’ It was draft week, and then he said there are some other things that may be coming down the pike as well, so it’s going to be a busy week for me, so we just agreed to talk later on.

“So, that’s when I saw and heard about Kevin and Paul, and obviously they did such terrific things for this place. It’s really amazing what they were able to do and what they were able to accomplish, and they’ll go down as two of the best that ever played here. But I knew that was coming when I accepted the job. I knew that it was a formality by the time I accepted the job, and so that didn’t have any impact on accepting it or not.”

While the Celtics have yet to release their preseason schedule for the 2013-14 NBA season, the Nets revealed that the two teams will each host a game against each other in October (h/t Red’s Army).

Brooklyn will play host to the C’s at the Barclays Center on Oct. 15, but the real event takes place eight days later, when Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett (oh, and Jason Terry) don black and white for the first time in Boston on Oct. 23.

The regular-season schedule, which commences on Oct. 29, is scheduled to be announced on Friday.

The Celtics on Monday confirmed the signings of guard Phil Pressey and Brazilian center Vitor Faverani.

Pressey, who played at Waltham High School and Cushing Academy when his father, Paul, was a Celtics assistant coach in the mid-2000s, was undrafted out of Missouri but played well for the Celtics’ summer league team in Orlando this month. The 5-foot-11 Pressey averaged 9.4 points, 6.6 assists and 2.0 steals in 23 minutes per game over five games in Orlando. As a senior at Missouri, Pressey averaged 11.9 points, 7.1 assists and 1.8 steals in 33.9 minutes per game over 34 games and was named to the All-SEC first team.

Faverani, a 6-foot-11 center, averaged 9.3 points and 4.6 rebounds while shooting 55 percent in 17 minutes per game over 23 games for Valencia Basket of the Spanish ACB.

The signings puts the Celtics roster at 17. They also are over the salary cap and are expected to move some bodies in order to avoid paying the luxury tax again this season.

The players, officially traded from the Celtics last week, were welcomed to New York and met the media and some fans alongside new Nets coach Jason Kidd and general manager Billy King. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov stopped by at the end of the press conference.

Pierce lamented having to leave Boston after spend the first 15 years of his NBA career with the Celtics, but he said he was pleased to have another opportunity to compete for a title.

“It’s tough when you’ve been in a situation like me for 15 years and you come to an organization such as the Brooklyn Nets. But when you look at it, what they’re trying to do here, win a championship, bring in the pieces necessary, new arena, new owners, new excitement — it really brings a little bit of excitement,” he said.

“Obviously I would have loved to end my career in Boston. But that day and age is probably over with with a lot of players ending their careers in one city. When the trade happened, you felt excited, especially with Kevin and Jason coming along. That will make the situation — not only for me, but each other — more comfortable.

“The ultimate drive is winning a championship. Obviously Boston is going in a different direction. And at this point in our careers, we’re championship-driven. We’ve made a lot of money in our careers, we’ve won a number of awards. I think at this point right now we’re all about winning a championship. And Brooklyn, we feel, gives us the best opportunity.”

Garnett waived his no-trade clause to accept the move, which he said he did only after he “sat down and let the dust sort of settle” so that he could make his decision “with a clear mind and a clear head of what I wanted to do.”

“It’s unfortunate we had to obviously move from Boston,” Garnett said. “But I felt like both sides are going in different directions. For me, one of the major reasons I decided to come here was because the bones of this — I feel like adding what you see up here with the bones of what they have already, with Brook [Lopez] and Deron [Williams] and all the pieces they have here, Joe [Johnson] — I feel like Paul said, this gives us the best option to win again, to win it all. I’m embracing this opportunity, my family’s embracing this opportunity. I’m looking forward to it.”

Another Celtics assistant is drawing interest from one of Boston’s arch rivals.

Jay Larranaga, who was considered as a candidate to replace Doc Rivers before Brad Stevens was hired, has been contacted by the Philadelphia 76ers to interview for their vacant head coaching position.

Before joining Boston for the 2012-13 season, Larranaga spent the previous two seasons as head coach of the Erie BayHawks of the NBA Development League. In two seasons with the BayHawks, Larranaga led his squad to consecutive playoff appearances while posting a regular season record of 60-40. He also established team records for all-time wins (60) and wins in a season (32).

In Larranaga’s two years in Erie, eight different players received NBA call-ups. Prior to arriving in Erie, Larranaga served as an assistant coach at Cornell, and before that he was head coach of the Irish National team for two years. Larranaga spent the summer of 2012 as an assistant for the Ukraine National team under former NBA coach Mike Fratello before joining Rivers’ staff last season.

Yahoo! NBA writer and insider Adrian Wojnarowski was first with the story.

Larranaga, who reportedly met on Tuesday with the Sixers, is one of a list of candidates the 76ers are considering to replace Doug Collins, who resigned” after the team’s 34-win season that resulted in Philly missing the playoffs one season after losing a Game 7 to the Celtics in the Eastern semis.

Larranaga’s father, Jim, was the AP college coach of the year this past season, leading the Miami Hurricanes to its first-ever tournament title, an ACC win over North Carolina and an appearance in the NCAASweet 16.

The 35-year-old native of Long Beach, Calif., is returning closer to home after joining Mark Jackson‘s coaching staff with the Warriors. Scalabrine also is working as a spokesperson with 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, and he served up the popular ‘Big Ginger’ cocktail behind the bar to excited patrons for three hours at Granary Tavern on Tuesday night in Boston.

‘Scal’ also sat down for a one-on-one interview with WEEI.com, and the former Celtic and Comcast SportsNet broadcaster shared his insight on topics ranging from the Celtics‘ championship in 2008, the bitter loss to the Lakers in 2010, and the work Danny Ainge has performed this summer. Scalabrine also quieted any speculation that he was in the running to replace Doc Rivers as coach in Boston.

“If four people would have passed on the Celtics, then I would have been interviewed to be the coach of the Celtics,” Scalabrine said. “But there’s no way four people were going to pass on that.”

Scalabrine was eager to share how greatly he evolved as a basketball player during his time with the Celtics.

“You have to look around at what you have,” he said. “That year [in 2007-08], we had Kevin Garnett directly from Minnesota coming in and changing the culture of our organization. He made sure guys were ready and focused. We could have fun in the locker room and joke around, but when it came to game time or practice, or the weight room or your individual time, it was time to lock in and get serious. Later on, on the bus or the plane, that’s when we could joke around. At the end of the day, we were about winning. We were about being successful.”

Winning a championship on a team driven by the likes of Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen helped Scalabrine perfect his own philosophy on the game of basketball.

“I’m about having success in life, but also having fun. There’s a misconception that I joke around and I’m not serious about the game of basketball. I’m ultra-serious about the game. I like the challenge of working with young guys, making them better, and getting them ready for a championship-caliber type of team. It’s not about getting better so you can be mediocre. I’m about getting you better so we can win a championship. That’s my focus.”